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This post contains spoilers for "Donnie Darko."

Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko" opens with a nightmarish conversation in the dark. An ominous-looking rabbit named Frank (James Duval) warns a young Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) about the world's imminent end — in 28 days, six hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds, to be precise. Although Frank looks more like a man in a rabbit costume than a tall bipedal rabbit, there is something eerily otherworldly about his presence, with the suit's soulless eyes adding a touch of the macabre. Since this fateful meeting, Donnie is guided by Frank towards a particular end, and the volatile, melancholy teen undergoes several rites of passage over the span of 28 days. Frank's mysterious influence over Donnie is just one baffling aspect of the film, as the mind-boggling nature of the events invites varied interpretations, often blurring the lines between reality and dreams, and ones where the two overlap.

It might...

"Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut" immediately establishes itself as a different viewing experience from the original 2001 film, as Jake Gyllenhaal's teen protagonist rides his bike home in his pajamas to a new soundtrack song. Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" is such a signature needle drop that it feels a little off to hear it replaced by Inxs's "Never Tear Us Apart."

It's as if writer-director Richard Kelly is now cueing the audience through music that it's about to enter a new "Tangent Universe," apart from the Primary Universe, just as Donnie himself does in one interpretation of the film. That interpretation gets a stronger push in "Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut," which introduces those capitalized terms onscreen and pulls another soundtrack switcheroo later when it replaces composer Michael Andrews' recognizable "Liquid Spear Waltz" with a piece of opera music.

George Lucas famously changed a song at the end...

Donnie Darko is your typical moody teenage boy. He also happens to frequently converse with a giant bunny rabbit named Frank (James Duval) and thinks the world is going to end in approximately 28 days — just read his forearm! He is also pretty sure that time travel is real, and that the crazy old lady who the neighborhood kids have nicknamed "Grandma Death" (Patience Cleveland) somehow holds the key to understanding all of this.

As the main character of Richard Kelly's 2001 film "Donnie Darko," Donnie's psyche is on full display as viewers watch him struggle to understand his true purpose in life after a gigantic jet engine falls off a plane and smashes into his room one night while he's out sleepwalking. When it was first released, the movie bombed at the box office — it only made a little over 500,000 against a 4 million budget (ouch) — but it has gone on...

Jake Gyllenhaal is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Donnie Darko. The movie first screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2001 before opening in theaters that following October. While it was not an initial hit at the box office, it became a cult classic when it was released on home video upon its release in March 2002 and sold million of copies. After the home video explosion, Donnie Darko became a midnight movie success, selling out screenings across North America and Europe.

Jake Gyllenhaal was 19-years old when he took on the title role in Donnie Darko. The production only lasted for 28 days, but the cast and crew all knew that they were working on something special. Gyllenhaal says, "It's a film that changed my life and my career, and it's been unreal to watch this story find afterlives with new audiences and new generations. The actor went on to note,...